


An Op-Ed Of Attendant Madness.

by ballpoint



Category: Scandal (TV)
Genre: Adult Content, Adultery, Canon Gay Character, F/M, canon character of colour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-28
Updated: 2013-03-28
Packaged: 2017-12-06 18:39:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/738859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballpoint/pseuds/ballpoint
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Olivia tries to convince Fitz to go hard against an opponent of the Fourth Estate. He does push back - but not in the way Cyrus and herself expect him to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Op-Ed Of Attendant Madness.

**Author's Note:**

> For 1shara. She wanted to know why Olivia would have abandoned all hope and common sense to get involved with a married man. What would have Fitz said and done to woo her onside. Whilst working on the story, I have come to the conclusion that it's not just one event, but a chain of many, and you might want to consider this story a link in that chain. If you need to consider this a part of a bigger series (a part 2? Or something? Where are we, anyway?), I'll take it, because I'm thinking there might be more to be mined here (or not, depending). Also, I'm not a lawyer, so you'll have to shake your head at a faulty bit of reasoning here and there. I will take advantage of your kind indulgence with me on this matter. 
> 
> Again, this is for season 1 of Scandal.

“Impossibly moderate,” Cyrus hissed, as he slapped the magazine on the desk in front of Olivia with barely restrained disgust. “Fitzgerald Grant III, impossibly moderate, but oh too believably WASP. Since when has moderate been a dirty word? I'll admit that being a WASP might not be a political advantage in the future, but it is NOW. _Impossibly moderate for a Republican candidate?_ They wouldn't say that about the other guy.”

“The other guy isn't a Republican candidate, Cy.”

“ _Liv_.”

“Stop pacing. You’ll give yourself a heart attack if you keep this up,” Olivia uncrossed her arms to poke at the magazine in front of her as if it were a small furry animal with bared teeth. With the tip of her index finger, she gingerly turned the magazine around, and took in the author of the article, the incendiary words that launched a thousand tirades all over various internet forums. 

“It’s an article in _Esquire_ , you can spin it as a screed for the effete and Milquetoasts that mask as men among us.”

“Charles S Parsons is an intellectual giant, a writer approaching the statue of Gore Vidal, oh, and a Pulitzer prize winning journalist.” Cyrus stalked around his cramped campaign office, large enough for a desk, two chairs, a filing cabinet filled to bursting, and various posters of _Grant for President_ designs along the walls, as well as a map of the continental united states with coloured pins indicating various stops and stumps. He ran his hands through his thinning hair, a visual sign of his distress, his voice hardening and his pitch picking up on every word. “He’s written columns for the _New York Times_ , did award winning long form articles for the _Journal_ , and a former contributing editor for _Vanity Fair_ ; he’s spoken in the same breath as Hitchens and those upstarts from across the pond, puts out best selling _memoirs_ in an age where people _download_ rather than buy intellectual property. And because he can’t put the boot in enough, unlike those poncy interlopers, he’s actually _American_ , Liv. _American_ , with offers of residency at our most August institutions for the _picking_. American! Liv. With a prose that harkens back to Henry David Thoreau lit with the poetry of a modern day Walt Whitman. _American_ , Liv. _American_.”

If Cyrus had been in a better mood, Olivia would have hummed _Tradition_ from _Fiddler On The Roof_ , replacing it with _American_. If Cyrus had been in a better mood. 

“He’s also on his third marriage with a former student, has a stepson that’s a leather daddy and heavily into the BDSM scene, a thrice married mother who was once on _America’s Most Wanted_. With a few leaks in the media, we could turn the tide a bit.”

“Yes,” Cyrus said, his shoulders slumping as he half sat, half stood against the desk. “Yes, we could get _The Drudge Report_ on it, although it’s not the colossus of internet bullying as it used to be, but, we can’t go there. His intellect and rigour shields him from everything, and even if we got past that -”

“Fitz doesn’t want us to.”

“Fitz doesn’t want us to.” Cyrus agreed with a heavy sigh. “He’s all about playing this above board. Christ, I’m partnered up with a Boy Scout.”

Olivia walked around the desk, and half consciously, mirrored Cyrus’ stance, half standing, half leaning against the edge of the desk, her hands clasped in front of her like a schoolgirl at mass. Cyrus, despite his stature and age(a bit short, balding and prone to middle aged spread), was her spirit twin in a lot of ways. Just as if he spoke, she knew the options he was quietly thinking about. Leaking Parsons’ _interesting_ family life was an option, focus the press on the more salacious aspects of it. Even drop a gentle hint to his enemies at the other other magazines - direct them to specific sources and make someone’s byline. However, that action had the potential to backfire- with a larger profile, Parsons would be able to do more damage. But they couldn't just stay silent and not fight back... 

“We can’t let this go on,” Cyrus continued as if Olivia had spoken her thoughts aloud. “It’s a chance we might have to take.” He turned his head to her, and Olivia read the question in his eyes before he even voiced it. 

“Cy- he might not listen.”

“Come on. After that bumpy start, you two seem to have come to an _understanding_. Fitz likes you, respects your opinion, and might even take it under advisement. If I do this without his by your leave, and it got out that the mischief originated from our camp, it would spell disaster for us. Loose lips and all that.”

Olivia pursed her lips. “I’ll try. If it’s a no go, however-” 

“We’ll try something else.”

***

“You want me to give the go ahead to smear Parsons,” Fitz said, as he strode towards her, an easy, rolling gait that might have bordered on insolence, if he weren’t so charismatic. They were in the campaign’s office, after hours. When even the most hardy of interns broke down, and turned in for a few hours of shut eye. Their surroundings washed in shakes of inky darkness, with enough recessed lighting from the passage for them to see their way.

“His comments about you are picking up traction. They are being debated on the networks. CNN, Fox, MSNBC. On the conservative boards, people are _screaming_ for your head and wondering how you ever rose to the top. The Republican faithful tend to fall into line when the candidate goes forward, but you can’t predict the evangelicals. In addition, polling suggests that this election is going to be close.”

Fitz half laughed, absently running his hands through his hair, leaving it ruffled as if he’d just been roused from sleep in the chair by the window.  
“I am running on a moderate platform. I don’t believe my positions are ‘impossibly moderate’, and as much as I can appreciate why my WASP background might be held against me, I can only hope that Mr Parsons would look at my positions, my past deeds, and go from there.”

Before she knew it, Olivia took a few steps towards Fitz, and circled him to study his face. 

“You read the article.”

Fitz’s mouth moved in amusement now, his eyes lit with it, even in the artificial twilight. “When Charles S Parsons deigns to write an article about me, the least I can do is read what he has to say. Being a moderate in my party isn’t an impossibility, Liv.” 

“Even though your party has trended to the far right post the year two thousand and beyond.”

“I’m not-” Fitz started, before raising his hands in a gesture of time out. A ‘T’ formed with the hands with one hand with flat palm placed perpendicular to the other hand with flat palm, roughly in the center. “Before we get into it, where do you stand on party lines? Democratic, Libertarian, Green. Are you casting a vote for Matty Bans? Or Noah Montgomery?”

“I’m apolitical.”

“Convenient.”

“Practical,” Olivia smiled at the bite in Fitz’ voice. “I know, it drives people crazy, but either way, I don’t get involved.”

“It’s a risky proposition to take,” Fitz shook his head, “since politics affect you. The right to work, the right to life. The right to a fair trial. _Roe vs Wade_ , various Amendments of personhood for instance.”

“It can be argued that with enough power and politicking, one can be shielded from the doctrine of precedent, Governor.” Olivia took a step back, a counterpoint to Fitz’s step forward. “I don’t think I need to paper the walls with pictures from the people on your side of the aisle for my point to be made. But you’re changing the subject.”

“No,” Fitz shook his head, “I’m not.”

“Fitz,” she stopped, all flirting and coyness put to the side for a moment. “Parsons’ point about your position pushing against a long held culture of neoconservatism is valid. It’s impermeable, casts you as charging at windmills, spitting on an actual political truth on your party’s side. If this point of view gets traction, your position is shaky, especially with Sally Langston being your second in command. Do you think her stance is ‘Moderate Republican’, and will she want to run on the ticket of moderate Republican when her coveted base is definitely not? No, it isn’t. No, she won’t.”

“No,” Fitz agreed, as he crowded her against the wall, and Olivia felt its chill on her shoulder blades through her jacket. The heat from his body a shocking counterpoint to the coldness of the wall. His palms on either side of her waist held her firm, and looking into his eyes, she saw the resolve there . “It isn’t,” he murmured, moving his face to hers, his hands hugging the curve of her waist, drifting up to the sides of her breasts, each touch sparking fires, making her as heavy and mindless as water, and just as unresisting, she a shape in his hands. “But we’re not smearing Parsons.”

“Fitz,” Olivia’s breath hitched, and his hands paused at the sides of her breasts for aching moments, before they drifted back to her waist, the gesture moving from erotic to almost courtly, as if he intended to launch them into one of those rumbling, tumbling line dances they had been a party to in one of the South Western states. Olivia’s heart picked up speed, as if they were already in mid routine, because - oh, because. 

“Liv,” her name in his mouth, intimate as a hushed prayer. When his hands touched her face, she wavered. When his forehead touched hers, the battle lost, she framed his face between the palms of her hands, and opened her mouth under his. With a half grunt, half moan, he gathered her in his arms, his mouth still on hers. “Please,” his hands ghosting under her shirt, the tips of his fingers, his mouth leaving hers, his tongue a wash against her throat, the blunt edges of his teeth adding another level of pleasure. 

“No,” she breathed, kitten weak against the temptation of him, and blindly grasping for willpower, for reasons of _no_ , she pushed at him. 

“I didn’t-” Olivia started, running her tongue over her lips, tasting him there, pressing her fingers against her lips and biting back a moan. “I didn’t - Fitz, we can’t be arguing over campaign strategy while we’re doing - this.” She ran shaky fingers through her hair. “Just, please, step back.” 

After an agonising few moments of him standing there, tempting her to overthrow all common sense, Fitz did as told, and moved. Olivia shivered as he took his heat from her. “We have to do _something_ ,” she looked at him as she spoke, each word piecing herself and her identity together. With each sentence, her purpose became clear, and a talisman against Fitz’s- _Fitz_. “Parsons’ scathing viewpoint won’t go away, and as much as I _admire_ your mandate for dialogue, this isn’t the time. I suggest you think about what he can do, especially given his open invitation to all the Sunday talk shows. If you don’t want a fight on the floor when you officially accept your nomination for the campaign to the White House, say yes. Give us permission to grind Parsons into dust.”

It cost her to say those words, to turn away from him, but pay it she did. As Olivia stomped out of the room on shaky legs, she prayed he’d say yes.

***

“What did you say to him?” Cyrus sidled up to Olivia the next afternoon. The noise of the people doing phone banking a balm to her jangled nerves; the activity of the campaign office a welcome distraction as she oversaw the planning, the placement of items in the media. She had her smartphone in one hand, scrolling through messages she’d received whilst asleep, and a cup of coffee in the other.

“Who?”

“Don’t ‘who’, me, Liv. Up to now, the response to Parsons and his noisy cohorts had us stumbling and lurching like a drunken freshman ready to upchuck at a frat pledge. I don’t need to remind you how it looked. Parsons 1, Grant campaign, 0.”

“Up to now.” Olivia said, sipping at her coffee, desperately hoping the caffeine would clear the cobwebs from her brain. She spent the rest of the night thinking about Fitz’s hands on her, his kisses an erotic soundtrack in her memory that she couldn’t turn off. At three am, still hot and uncomfortable,she stripped and took a cold shower; flinching at her skin as it erupted in goosebumps, each drop of water a lash against her skin. Exhausted, Olivia threw herself across the bed, naked, her hair drawing itself from her shoulders into spirals. She wrapped the sheet around her before drifting into a restless sleep- only to ignore her alarm. The day seemed to be running ahead of her, turning a corner every time she thought she had it in her sights. She was here, late and caught on the backfoot. 

“Up to now,” Cyrus rubbed his hands, his features animated and aglow. “I don’t know what you said to him- hey, you, give that here-” he cut off their conversation as he snapped his fingers at a copy of the broadsheet from a half awed staff member who slapped it in his hand. Cyrus waved it in front of her face, triumphant. “But whatever pep talk you gave him last night, keep giving it.”

Olivia swiped the paper from Cyrus’ hand, but he was already half way down the passage, half humming, half thinking ahead. With a frown beetling her brows, her eyes lit on the article Cyrus had thoughtfully circled in red ink, her phone almost falling from her hand with the shock.

Two

“Governor.” Fitz knew that voice anywhere, a unique aural print. Brisk and businesslike, with that promise of sex at the edges. Fanciful thoughts, he knew, shooting a grin in her direction as he ignored the intern beside him.

“Oh,” said Tatianna, a young woman who signed on to the campaign a couple of states ago, one of the interns who seemed to be perennially half asleep or stoned. Her eyes popped open at Olivia storming up the path, never mind her heels being about five inches high, Olivia walked as if she wore top of the line running shoes. “I don’t know how she walks in those.”

 _More like stomp_ , Fitz mentally corrected, admiring her pace as Olivia ate up the ground, her ponytail bouncing and streaming in the wind, her hands swinging and pumping at her sides. Olivia was dressed down, in T-shirt and dark jeans, with a windbreaker to guard against the cool breezes of the evening- but she never strayed from any type of heel in her outfits, as if the footwear added superpowers to her being. If he ever got the chance to tell her, he’d tell her that she didn’t need them. 

“Ms Pope,” Fitz greeted, his tones polite, his smile hot. “We were on our way to dinner. You remember-”

“Tatianna,” Olivia smiled at the girl, and Tatianna beamed, suddenly alert and bright eyed. “How are you?”

“Fine, Ms Pope,” Tatianna vibrated, her manner at odds with the laid back- to the point of growing mold- young woman he had gotten to know over the course of the campaign. “You?”

“I’m good. Great work on the phone banking. Thank you so much, your help has been invaluable so far.”

“Oh,” Tatianna said, her face colouring. “ _oh_.”

“I wondered if you could show me the ropes tomorrow? I haven’t done that in a while, and with your coaching-”

“Oh God, yeah!” Tatianna nodded, as she hugged her clipboard against her chest, her pale face flushing with pleasure. “Sure, Ms Pope, whatever you say.”

“Call me Olivia,” and that was Olivia, doing the charm offensive like any veteran politician. Looking and smiling at Tatianna as if she were the only person on the campaign trail, infusing enough warmth for the reaction to seem genuine. “Um, yeah. Yeah. That would be great Ms Po- I mean, Olivia. Erm- is nine o’clock good for you?” 

“Great,” Olivia smiled, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow!” Tatianna nodded, before hurrying away towards the dining room of the hotel they were presently staying at. 

“Impressive,” Fitz raised an eyebrow as soon as Tatianna went out of earshot. “All this, just to get rid of her.”

“All this, just to talk to _you_ ,” Olivia held the broadsheet in her hand, and raised it to shoulder height. “Come with me.”

***

“Whatever possessed you to write this?” Olivia waved the rolled sheet of paper under his nose, the height of her wedged heel allowing her to reach his shoulder. “How did you even get them to run this at such short notice?”

“Here’s the thing about being the presumptive nominee of one of the two major political parties,” Fitz caught the end of the rolled paper, and held it fast in his fist. “If you want to say something about the political process, and what it means to you, people will listen, access will be granted.”

It was quite a thing to watch Olivia Pope making an effort to hold her temper in check. She looked away from him for a moment, and Fitz took the opportunity to study her profile. Her slight overbite, her full lips drawn together in a sexy, full pout, her brows beetled together, with a vertical line between them that he wanted to smooth away with kisses. He could, what with them being in the small, cramped hotel room she’d dragged him into, her temper barely restrained, and he understood. Expected her anger because Olivia Pope was a woman who believed in controlling _everything_ , which is why her next actions caught him on the hop.

“Fitz,” Olivia finally looked at him, her eyes huge and luminous. Her face a perfect oval, her features a lovely combination of everything that on the face of it, shouldn’t have worked but it did. Huge eyes, full lips, cheekbones you could cut bread on. “You -” she shook her head, her fingers still wrapped tightly around the rolled sheet of paper. “You -” the anger fled with a twitch of her lips as she smiled at him self consciously, edged with a melancholy that tugged at his heart. “Wrote this editorial for me.”

“I won’t tell if you won’t,” and he couldn’t help it, feeling altogether a bit too smug, only for his smile to fade as she released her hold on the rolled sheet of paper, and turned away. 

“ _Olivia_ ,” the rolled paper fell from his hands and landed on the floor with a short, sharp smack. Grabbing her shoulders, Fitz turned her to face him. Olivia still continued to look away, into the distance, until he framed her face in his hands, and gently, guided her face to his. “Look at me,” he pleaded, his thumbs stroking her cheek bones. 

“You can’t,” she shook her head at him, her eyes shimmering with emotion. “You can’t just - go haring off the reservation without getting the go ahead from either Cy and myself. We can’t take steps if we don’t know the actions you’ve done. You have to promise me-”

“ _Livvie_ ,” Fitz dipped his head as his lips touched hers, his hands still on her face. “Okay.”

 _Okay_ , Fitz had said, before his lips brushed hers, and it was like entering the correct code in a safe, the tumblers inside a smooth click as she parted the seam of her lips to let him in. His hands already tugging at her blouse, his mouth branding her exposed flesh, sending delicious shudders with each open mouthed kiss. Half blind, Olivia reached for him, her fingers cataloguing things she couldn’t see, her body absorbing the sensations that she couldn’t express. The flex and play of his muscles along his sides as she pawed at his soft sweater. The coarse silk of his hair under the palms of her hands, through the spaces between her fingers. The hardness and heat of his thighs against hers. 

Olivia’s world tipped, and turned as Fitz swept her up in his arms, and for long moments, they gazed at each other. His eyes fixed on her face, his mouth an intense line. Her heart skipped, and stuttered in her chest. A little thing with wings that fluttered and took flight when he looked at her, just like this. 

“It’s you,” his voice was raw, the words tender. “It’s always you.”

Her heart so full of him, Olivia feared her voice might crack if she tried to say his name, and kissed him instead. An erotic charge of tongues sliding against each other. Kisses joined to each other like links in a chain. Halting and slow as they gauged each other, zooming from zero to frantic and desperate as Fitz sank to his knees, threw her on the bed. Olivia bounced on the mattress, and she opened herself to the moment ; as simple as joy, as vital as breath, her guffaw subsiding into giggles. Only for Fitz’s mouth to cover hers, his hands dragging her snug jeans off her thighs, Olivia trying to toe off her boots but in vain. Fitz raised her leg, his hand supporting her calf as he peered at her boot, a raised eyebrow at the slap of red on its sole. 

“You always wear a heel,” he said, as he found the zipper at its side, and tugged it towards her ankle. “As if its a superpower.”

“It is. It gives me height. Extra inches _are_ a superpower.”

Her boots dispensed with, and her trousers following, Fitz inched his way along her body, the backs of his fingers tracing the line of her jaw. Olivia’s eyes fluttered closed, as she drew Fitz to her. Arching against him as his mouth left hers, teeth nipping along her collarbone. Her bra askew, as he rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, her breath caught in her throat due to the shocked pleasure, that translated to a broken moan as he dipped his head to her breast.

He could get intoxicated on her, on this. The way her body responded to his touch, her breathy moans for him, the sheen of sweat on her skin, and limbs. Her scent seeping into the air around him filling his senses. The taste of salt, and sweetness and _her_. This time, he knew the map of her body; her small breasts with nipples three shades darker than her skin. Her nipples hardening to points with the tremor of his breath, the tremors of her body as he bathed it with his tongue. First one, then the other, the line of her stomach as his fingers skimmed along its plateau, before the tiny bump of her abdomen. 

“Fitz.” His name from her lips felt like a benediction, as his fingers slid under the edge of her panties, a swatch of silk edged with the froth of lace. Her body clamped around his fingers, sleek and tight and wet. Experimentally, he crooked both his index and middle fingers, and got rewarded as she moved on them, her eyes shut, her mouth slack as she rocked her hips, clamping her fingers around his wrist. 

“I want-” Olivia mouthed, as she rocked on his fingers, pistoning her hips as she did a full body roll - a lock of muscles - butt to hips and stomach, the movement as smooth and strong as a wave. 

Fitz lifted her hand -and kissed her fingers, as she watched through lowered lashes. Grasping her hips, and holding them firm, he lowered his head, dragging off her panties with his teeth and fingers, with Olivia’s thighs shuddering on either side, torturing him and her both as he breathed in her centre, nosed at it, the scent of it reminding him of the sea. He tongued her, an open mouthed kiss, and gave himself over to drinking from her, deep and long. 

Desire lashed through her body, each shock as smart and sure as a whip. Fitz held her hips still as he feasted on her, the first climax caught her off guard, dragging her in its undertow. Olivia opened her mouth, the air ripe with the scent of sex and _them_. Her eyes fluttered closed, the words from his editorial scrolling along her eyelids. With no effort at all, she could call them to memory: _It is disheartening to see politics being so vitriolic and divisive, to the point of apolitical being the word of the day. People chose to opt out of the conversation as a whole, leaving us the poorer for it: Less insightful, less informed. Less engaged in the process of building our country, in the lessons that we hold dear. At the end of the day, we've unconsciously resolved ourselves being less than we can be._

Again, with seemingly no effort at all, she imagined Fitz writing the speech on legal pad in long hand, with the same steely focus he had now, his face over hers, his biceps trembling with the effort as he loomed over her, impaling her inch by inch. Filling and emptying her with each stroke, as he raised her legs, his hands under the crook of her knees, in order to go deeper. Olivia clenched around him, her fingers grasping at the thin sheets of the hotel bed, his hips pistoning into hers. His arms trembled from his exertions, his eyes pinned with her with the weight of their stare, and Olivia opened herself to his onslaught, his body shuddering, before he came apart, gasping and spent in her arms.

***

_In this great democracy, all viewpoints are welcome, if not necessarily valid. Charles S Pearson dismisses my candidacy as “impossibly moderate for a Republican candidate”, citing the fractious factions of my party as reason for me not to even be considered-_

“Hmm.” Fitz raised his head and kissed her, and Olivia took it, throwing her arms around his neck, and drawing him towards her, inwardly castigating herself for her unchecked greed. _He’s not yours_ , Olivia warned herself, but that point was moot, as they kissed without urgency, but with heat. 

“Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent,” Olivia quoted, when they pulled away only for Fitz’s face to colour in the dim light of their hotel room. 

Fitz traced her jaw with his thumb, the weight of him pressing her into the mattress, and Olivia relished it. The prickle of hair along his chest and arms, the strength of his thighs, the tangle of their limbs. 

“Ulysses S Grant,” Fitz said, knowing that Olivia quoted a line from his op ed. “I like that quote, it served me well as Governor. I tried to sharpen my judgement, in order to minimise my failures,” he half laughed, before pushing himself off her and sitting up.

“Referencing a son of the South, very clever, Governor.”

“The South,” Fitz began, accustomed to having politics as pillow talk, “is still a part of the Union, and a big part of the base. As much as Cyrus flinches at the South, and would make a few states secede if he could, they are still important, and their insights just as valid as everywhere else. We have to move beyond the Mason-Dixie divide, Livvie. Being ‘moderate’ shouldn’t be an impossibility, but a necessity.”

“And you think it’s possible to bring that into a Grant Presidency?”

“Ronald Reagan changed a world in his. Left his influence on our side and changed the political landscape of America on a whole. The Democrats have been scrambling to catch up ever since- and it’s been almost thirty years. Granted, it took him two terms-”

“You have yet to get to one.”

Fitz chuckled. In addition to everything, that’s what he liked about Olivia. No sacred cows for her- or her mentor, Cyrus. Not if they could topple them and melt them into coin. Or if the cows were of flesh, hack them and turn them into steaks for the grill and flog them to an unsuspecting populace. Their shared silence a peaceful, comfortable thing, and Fitz wondered what she would say if he told her that he wanted more. That he wanted out of his marriage, that he wanted her. That he wanted _them_. 

“You told me,” he said instead, keeping the mood light.

Olivia laughed, a low and sultry presence in the darkness.

“You didn’t have to write it,” Olivia said, her diction precise, even careful. In Fitz’s mind, he associated it with her ‘fixer’ tone. The one where she made her voice soft and comforting, her words tactful when it came to addressing matters of heightened sensitivity. “We could have taken on Parsons a different way.”

“A less honourable way, you mean.”

“Fitz-”

“I know,” Fitz laid a hand against her thigh, as he searched her face, as distant and mysterious as a Madonna. “I’m no fool- as much as - well. I’m no fool. I’m aware of the bare knuckled politics of my father’s day. I also know that you and Cy are ‘sausage makers’, that you do - what you do. I _know_. I appreciate it, but - that’s my stand.”

“An intellectual treatise against Charles S Parsons.”

“A lo-” Fitz bit off his words, and corrected himself with a brief and self conscious grin. “A letter to you, too.”

Olivia laid her hand on his, the darker tone of her hands a contrast to the pale cast of his own. 

“You didn’t have to,” she said at last. Her voice, even for this moment of intimacy in a dark room- circumspect veering towards apprehensive. He linked their fingers together. “I already know who you are.”

Fitz lifted their joined hands, kissed her fingers, before letting them go. He got up from the bed, and strolled to the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. 

_A lo- a letter to you, too_ , he’d said. With great effort, Olivia pushed herself from her bed, walked across the room to the rolled copy of _The Times_. She bent down, picked it up and smoothed it with her fingers, the editorial circled in red ink, Cy’s notes at various points in the margins. It was a stirring piece, touching on the tenets of being a moderate Republican, and why his position had merit in the larger political discourse. He touched on honour, and charmed with pointed humour about Parsons not holding his WASPness against him. It spoke of his appreciation for the process, and Olivia sighed at the sheer uselessness and romance of seven hundred and fifty words as she held the paper against her chest, and stood in the middle of the room naked. Listened as the white noise of water hitting tile filled the air. She waited on her heart to settle and her eyes to clear. 

The bathroom door opened, and Fitz stood in the doorway, his face and naked torso outlined by the overhead light. He held out his arm to her, the steam of the shower billowing around him. Fitz looked like one of those superheroes born from the elements and a fervent wish. Olivia smiled, allowing the wonder of _him_ to bloom in her heart. Taking this moment and pressing it into the scrapbook of her memory, embroidered with needs she couldn’t give into, and wants she had no right to get. 

“Come on in. The water’s warm.”

At this, she didn’t hesitate. Olivia dropped the paper at her feet, and moved towards him, and placed her hand in his.


End file.
